I hope that you were able to have a celebratory end of 2017 and beginning of 2018.
- "Here's a toast to the future, a toast to the past, and a toast to our friends, far and near. May the future be pleasant, the past a bright dream; may our friends remain faithful and dear." -- Anonymous
That being said... Husband, pups and I rang in the new year with a Star Wars Marathon, starting with Episode 5 (We couldn't find Ep. 4 on any streaming app for free-yea we're cheap). Overall a pretty uneventful way to celebrate, but I think it was easier on the dogs because of fireworks. Here, where we live, fireworks are extremely common. They're not suppose to start shooting them off until midnight and are only suppose to last a hour (I might be wrong on this; didn't research). Well, we live in the country side and fireworks were going off around noon. The often sounded like a blast from a shotgun. Usually, our dogs don't mind the sounds of guns because we used to live near a gun range. But here it's a little different. One really doesn't care much at all. The other wants to chase the noise to investigate while barking (something our neighbors probably don't appreciate). So, we put Star Wars on loud, put the white noise machine on high, and shut the rolladans (if you don't know what they are... they're AMAZING and a must have). All the precaution measures seemed to help with out crazy dogs. I think it would have been far to stressful on them if we had gone down to the pub and left them home.
New Years resolutions? I haven't got 'em. I don't remember the last time I made one, if I'm being honestly. Every year I tell myself, this year will be different; I'll travel, I'll eat better, I'll sleep better, I'll be happier. But to be fair, I also tell myself that multiple times a month throughout the year. Maybe this year will be different, but I'm not going to hold my breath and lie to myself.
It's only 5 days into the new year and I already foresee some struggles that I'm going have, some too personal to share on the blog for the time being, others are quite a bit different, however, personal, that I don't mind sharing... like depression. Yep. I've got it. I've had it since I was a small child. For some folks this is quite a serious issue to deal with day in and day out. I manage to be a function depression kind of person. I also have my moments of crippling, can't get out of bed, don't want to shower/eat/talk/breathe kind of days. Sometimes it's related to what I've eaten or lacking on exercise. Sometimes it's related to the weather (i.e. RAINY FOR DAYS, like recently). Or as husband pointed out once after one of our adventure trips, "You get depressed when we come home from traveling. Being home makes you depressed." Being home doesn't make me depressed, but come down from all the awesomeness that is traveling does make me sad because I want to travel ALL THE TIME. Lately, I've been isolating from my friends, the dogs, and even my husband. Luckily, I have the WORLD'S MOST PATIENT MAN as my husband. He often doesn't know how to handle my depression, but he's patient enough with me that I pull through it on my own time. He understands when I'm having a difficult time doing something or finding the motivation to do something.
Someone once told me that they didn't believe that Mental Health and Depression were real; that they were all just made up because someone didn't want to deal with "things." They later learned that's not the case and depression is VERY real and Mental Health is serious. We must remember to take care of our oh mental health state for improved quality of life. This is something I often struggle with in my life. I forget to take care of me and then I become exhausted taking care of others causing me to fall in to a cycle of depression. So when I have the energy (not sucked out of my by chronic physical pain), then I enjoy being active and doing things. Otherwise, I try to do something nice for those in my life I'm closest too... like bake cookies, make a blanket, or make dinner for my husband. I've made you dinner, baked dessert for you, or given you a homemade blanket I was just being selfish doing self care.
If you're local to me and find that I'm isolating too much, don't just show up at my door. You'll likely find me still in my pajamas after noon, hair in a heap, and probably wrapped in a blanket. But you can reach out to me and check on me to see how I'm doing. In the very near future I'm going to need that, to be honest. I'll need someone to make sure I'm getting out of bed to walk to the dogs. Heck, someone to ask me to bake for them or go on walks with them.
With that... Enjoy your next adventure. I want to hear all about it. Put love into the next creative endeavor you pursue. I want to see photos. And remember to be kind to all you encounter and love the ones closest to you... you never know what storm might be brewing in their head/heart.
Cheers!
